Amid perceptions that Gov. Doug Ducey favors charter schools over traditional public schools, a fledgling education group is asking school districts to contribute money to promote the successes of traditional public schools.

Ducey’s office today (June 3) called a meeting of education officials, during which he laid out a plan to increase the amount of money from trust land sales that goes to K-12, according to a source familiar with the governor’s plans.

Several district-sponsored charter schools were in a panic about the possibility that because lawmakers omitted a line in the state budget, they could be on the hook to repay the state millions of dollars of funding from previous years.

Arizona education officials have asked the state Attorney General's Office to investigate possible cheating at seven schools where officials say some students' answers on standardized tests were erased and changed to the correct answer at a higher-than-normal rate.

A top official at the Arizona Department of Education said the state can make changes to Common Core without jeopardizing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, thanks to an agreement it reached with a national group that helped craft the K-12 academic standards.